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Your Thoughts Post-Loyalty Lab Workshop?

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Loyalty Lab workshop both onsite at MAH and online via Google Hangout. We learned, played, schemed, and hopefully came up with some great ideas to deepen engagement with visitors at our respective institutions.

I wanted to create this simple post as an “open thread” for you to share your reflections on the afternoon. Just add a comment below this post in whatever format you choose. If you would like to write something more lengthy or use images, links, etc., I encourage you to contact me (Nina) about setting up an account on the site so you can post something yourself. It is a painless experience.

Thanks again for joining and inspiring us!

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Many thanks for inviting me to participate in Loyalty Lab. My favorite idea from the workshop came at the end of the day when our group was brainstorming ways to conclude your monthly First-Friday events in a way that encouraged loyalty among your visitors, made them feel they were part of a larger community and prompted them to want to visit the museum again. I thought having the museum’s signature red ball drop from the ceiling at the end of the night (like the ball in Times Square does on New Year’s Eve) was terrific. I also liked the idea of encouraging visitors to do a countdown or sing the equivalent of “Auld Lang Syne” as the ball dropped. There are many other celebratory customs the museum could initiate to foster loyalty among its fans (like the end-zone dances football players do when they score a touchdown). It may sound silly, but these types of customs help people bond with each other, which is why so many clubs and sports teams capitalize on them. Museums should too!

On a more serious note, I think your museum would do itself a service by taking more time to fully articulate and document what increasing loyalty actually looks like for your museum. Is it increasing the number and/or frequency of visits? Is it moving visitors to a deeper level of engagement? Is it prompting favorable word of mouth among visitors? Is it increasing the number of memberships purchased or donations received? These definitions of loyalty will be essential if the museum hopes to measure the success of this great experiement. They will also help to focus your staff and make sure that the experiments you try aren’t just about having fun (although, I suppose fun could become a definition of loyalty, as well).

In the meantime, I wish you well as you embark on this great adventure. Please keep the rest of us informed about your progress. I’m looking forward to seeing that ball drop at a future museum event!

Hi All,
I really appreciated the chance to learn about the project you are working on as well as what the Chicago Children’s Museum is doing. It was wonderful to participate in the break out sessions and hear everyone’s ideas.

Some of the ideas were wonderful and I have brought them back to our team- specifically the punch card. We are currently working on a way to create loyalty and learn about our visitors (as they learn about us) to our Friday Nights Program. We have partnered with Off The Grid to have food trucks here EVERY Friday night. It has been a challenge for staff to determine if we have the same group of people coming back each week and what they do when they are here. We have thrown the idea of a punch card for a while and it was very helpful to talk to you and your team about your experiences. I am specifically interested in how we collect data, and what we do with it later on to continue the relationship. I have some ideas and will keep you all posted on our progress.

I am also very excited about how we can introduce some of the game theory concepts into our programming, and how that will impact the experience we are able to provide for our visitors.

Thank you again for putting this together, sorry for posting so long after the fact!